Hazelnut Cake with Mocha Frosting

Happy Sunday! I hope you are having a fun weekend, wherever you may be. Stuart and I have been enjoying a nice "SLO" weekend here in San Luis Obispo, with not too much on the radar. It's been a nice change after our past weeks of traveling. Today, we potted plants for the sidewalk in front of our apartment, got groceries, and are planning to wrap up the evening with some homemade turkey burgers (recipe coming soon). Yesterday, we went to an office barbeque party for Stuart's work, which was a ton of fun. While there, we stuffed ourselves with tri-trip and garlic break, and for dessert everyone brought something to share, potluck style. I decided to experiment by making this cake that I found a blog that I follow called Bake or Break. Chock full of hazelnuts and topped with a coffee-chocolate frosting, this is a cake with flavors that work almost as well for breakfast as they do for dessert!

 

 

Pictured above is one half of the cake recipe that appears below. I made the full recipe as shown below, and brought one half of it to a barbeque with friends on Thursday night. The other half I saved in the fridge for the above-mentioned work barbeque on Saturday. If you are interested in making your cake do "double duty" like this, I kept the baked cake in the fridge on Thurs/Fri, then took it out, let the frosting soften up, and frosted it right before the BBQ on Saturday afternoon. It still tasted perfect two days later.

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

For the frosting:
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-3 tablespoons brewed strong coffee (use 3 if you want a stronger coffee flavor)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 to 2 tablespoons milk
Chopped toasted hazelnuts, for garnish

Instructions;
To make the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Line bottoms with parchment paper. Butter paper.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.
5. Reduce mixer speed to low. Add flour in three portions, alternating with two portions of sour cream. Mix until a few streaks of flour remain. Stir in hazelnuts.
6. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Smooth batter evenly in pans.
7. Bake 30-35 minutes, or until cakes are lightly browned and a pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. Cool in pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then, run a knife around the edges to loosen the cakes. Transfer cakes from pans to a wire rack to cool completely. Remove parchment paper.

To make the frosting:

1. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, cocoa powder, espresso, and vanilla until thoroughly combined.
2. Gradually add confectioners' sugar. Mix until smooth.
3. Add milk as needed to attain desired spreadable consistency.
4. Place one cake layer on a cake plate. Spread half of the frosting on top of the cake.
5. Place remaining cake layer on top of frosted cake layer. Spread remaining frosting on top of the second cake layer. Garnish with chopped hazelnuts.

 

 

 

Crispy Spring Chicken with Basil Pan Sauce

You know what I like about chicken? Just when you think it is getting boring, you find a new recipe or eat a new dish that impresses you and makes you love it all over again. Is that just me? Regardless, you may want to take notes here because this week I had one of those "aha" moments after trying out a great new chicken recipe that I adapted from here: crispy roast chicken with a divine herb sauce. This is one of these meals that is, in both looks and preparation, extremely simple. Yet somehow, the taste of this chicken, when doused with fresh herbs and spices, felt like it belonged straight out of a plate in the French countryside - simple yet exquisite.

There are a few things to keep in mind if you want to make this recipe. First, you will want to buy a whole chicken and quarter it yourself, or buy one that is already quartered. I quartered a whole one I had at home, and if this scares you (it scared me), you might find this video helpful (you can ignore the very first step where he cuts off the wing tips). Second, you will want to let the chicken come to room temperature before roasting by leaving it on the counter for 1 hour. I set myself a reminder in my online calendar a night before so that I would get an alert and remember to do this.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds), quartered, at room temperature
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup packed basil
1/2 cup packed parsley
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes (to taste)
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey

Directions:

1. An hour before baking, remove chicken from fridge, quarter it, and let it rest on therimmed baking sheet you will roast it on.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 
3. Pat chicken dry really well with paper towels. Rub chicken with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil; season liberally all over with salt and pepper. Arrange, skin-side up on pan and roast until golden on the top rack of the oven (or until a thermometer inserted into thickest part of breast (without touching bone) registers 160 degrees), about 35 minutes. 
4. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Using a food processor, pulse the basil, parsley, garlic, red pepper flakes, red wine vinegar, and honey. Slowly add the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and puree until smooth (this can take 1-2 minutes, you are aiming for the consistency of pesto). 
5. When the chicken finishes roasting, let it rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.
6. After the chicken has rested, put the basil sauce into a bowl and add any drippings that you can spoon out from the chicken pan. Mix well. Spoon the sauce over the chicken pieces just before serving.

Secret Green Bean Dipping Sauce:
This is a sauce my family has been making for years. My mom learned how to make it when she was a waitress in a Japanese restaurant. Sounds weird but it's great! Just combine the below ingredients to taste.

Mayonnaise 
Soy sauce
Sesame seeds (optional) 

 

The original recipe I used said to pour the basil sauce onto the pan itself, mix it with the chicken's natural juices, then let the chicken rest on top of it. This worked well but it was a bit tricky to scoop up every last bit of the delicious sauce from the pan when it was time to top the chicken. What I recommended above was to keep the sauce separate (optional). 

 

 

Try serving the chicken with tender green beans and my family's "secret" green bean dipping sauce!

Caprese Salad with Burrata and Nectarines

Can you believe it is mid-July already? I for one am having trouble processing how fast 2014 is speeding along. However, there is a huge bonus to the fact that it is July and that is...stone fruit season!! Some of my absolute favorite fruits and vegetables come into season in the high summer, and delicious peaches and nectarines and ripe juicy tomatoes are just a few of them. At no other time of the year is it easier to aim for your "daily quota" of fruits and greens, because everything is just asking to be picked and eaten.

I thought I would experiment a bit this week with the classic Caprese Salad. While you can't go wrong with traditional caprese, I thought I would spice things up a little with some new ingredients. I have been intrigued with burrata cheese for a while now and knew that I wanted to incorporate it into a salad. For those of you who are unfamiliar with burrata, it is essentially a form of mozzarella cheese that is solid mozzarella on the outside, with cream in the center. It has an amazing soft texture and is just perfect on this salad. I think I'll be subbing burrata for normal mozzarella for the rest of my life! They sell a version at Trader Joe's that is excellent.

The next step was to add some nectarines to the salad for sweetness. All I can say, to quote the pop icon Britney Spears, is gimme gimme more...

Ingredients:
Tomatoes
White nectarines
Burrata cheese
Basil
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

 

 

 

Tonight, I'm going to continue on the stone fruit craze and make these Stone Fruit Pork Chops. And later in the week, I've stocked up on the last of the season's apricots so I can make my all-time favorite Apricot Pie! 

A Weekend in Napa

My whirlwind summer has officially commenced, starting two weekends ago with a bachelorette party for my good friend Lindsay in Napa, CA. June was a beautiful time to visit wine country, and it had been quite a while since I was last in the Napa/Sonoma area. Napa these days is a little bit like the "Disneyland" of wine country. Not only did we see other bachelorette parties roaming the wine scene, but we also spotted another "Future Mrs. Gutierrez!" What are the odds? Good, apparently! However, if you know where to stay and sip, it is still possible to have a Napa experience that is uniquely yours. This past weekend was a case in point!

 

Getting ready for wine tasting at Frog's Leap

 Our adorable ranch house accommodations at the home of the Maid of Honor's friend, winemaker Jason Holman

 

We stopped by at the Culinary Institute of America. Next time, it would be fun to make a reservation at their on-site restaurant! 

 

We explored their magical kitchen shop

 

And hung out in the cookbook store 

 

Tasted wine in a beautiful garden in Rutherford

And for dinner we had delicious Parisian food at Bistro Jeanty

 

The green bean salad with goat cheese was amazing!!

 

 

The next morning, we tasted TEN wines at the by-appointment-only Holman Cellars, the wine label owned by our amazing weekend hosts. I sadly had to drive, so only took a tiny sip of each.

 

They pulled out all the stops, including a meat and cheese platter to accompany our tasting! Thank you Lindsay Gutierrez for bringing together lovely friends for an amazing weekend!